[font] Comic Neue … The Aesthete’s Comic Sans

3049.

So. MS Comic Sans.

Insert Whitmanesque YAWP here.

I firmly believe that Comic Sans isn’t bad; it’s just drawn that way. Vincent Connaré had no idea that when he composed that font for use in Microsoft BOB that it would become the most levelling influence in the visual arts since Helvetica.

No insult meant to either, there.

But since then the world seems betimes swimming in inappropriate uses of Comic Sans. I’m sure, on some nuclear reactor nearing EOL somewhere, there’s a sign reading EMERGENCY REACTOR SCRAM written in Comic Sans – either through irony or simply lack-of-awareness, who can say … and really, does it matter?

No. No, it does not.

Anywho, in the occasional quixotic drive to create a cultural counterpoint to CS, the Japan-based designer Craig Rozynski has hammered out the weird and visually-discordant bendy bits, engineered some kerning and other things, and created Comic Neue*. Here’s what it looks like, with screenshots from its site:

The designer tried to draw the line between the casual ‘honesty’ of Comic Sans and the lack of good design. He’s pretty much succeeded; it’s like CS only not terrible, and doesn’t feel like daggers of evil piercing your eyes. So, in as much as addressing the flaws of CS, it’s a success.

The deeper philosophical question of necessity is an exercise I leave to the sojourner. And, as far as Mr Connaré hisself?